Best practive moving to a new machine

[xxlbug]

Hello everyone,

 

i want your advice for my plan before i possibly do something stupid:

In a couple of days i'm getting all components to move from my current unraid setup (dell r510, 8x10tb disks) to a much quieter and less powerhungry custom build. I will also switch from a raid card to a software raid (learned my lesson :-)). My array is currently encrypted.

 

Since i will need a couple of the disks currently in use in the new machine to copy/hold all the data AND i'm switching from a raid card (old setup) to a software raid (so all disk IDs will change), i was thinking of doing the following:

1. moving data from 3 disks to the others with the help of the "unbalance" plugin (alread finished)
2. removing the now empty disks from the array, leaving the array unprotected and putting them in the new system (i'm fine with the risk for a couple of days)
3. copy all data from the old machine to the new machine
4. if everything is copied, change the rest of the drives to the new machine

 

My questions to you are as follows:

- is my plan sound?

- can i remove so many disks and just start the array without them as normal (and get a warning)

- can i use a test version of unraid for the new build, since i will need my licence on the old build until all data is transferred?

- anything else i should consider?

 

I looked at @SpaceInvaderOne videos and read a couple of threads so i have a general idea but now it is getting real and i want to do a check before i pull the trigger 🙂

 

Thank you for your time

xxlbug

[trurl]

You can only start the array if you have no more missing disks than you have parity. No need to run the old server unprotected without those disks though. You can New Config and rebuild parity with the remaining disks.

 

Test license on the new build will be fine.

[trurl]

18 minutes ago, xxlbug said:

switch from a raid card

Just in case you need recommendations:

 

[xxlbug]

18 minutes ago, trurl said:

You can only start the array if you have no more missing disks than you have parity. No need to run the old server unprotected without those disks though. You can New Config and rebuild parity with the remaining disks.

 

Test license on the new build will be fine.

Thank you for your advice. So just that i understand it correctly: I power everything down, remove the three disks, power on. Then don‘t start the array but do the new config and start building parity for the the remaining disks. After that i can transfer the data and repeat the process if needed? No problems if the array is encrypted.

 

Perfect, test licence it will be.

 

[xxlbug]

23 minutes ago, trurl said:

Just in case you need recommendations:

 

Thank you for the link, i bought a 10 port supermicro board so i wont need a raid card anymore. One less component to fail 🙂

[xxlbug]

Just a quick update for the afterworld:

@trurl thank you for your advice, i removed the drives, did the new config thing and now the parity is rebuilding with three drives less 🙂

 

for everyone else with a similar use-case as me, who stumbles upon this post in the future:

The unraid wiki makes no specific mention how "new config" and encrypted drives will work. So here is what i've done/seen on unraid 6.10.3

1. i made a screenshot of the "Main" view with the working setup including the hdd's i wanted to remove and powered down
2. I physically removed the hdd, powered on the server, ignored all raid controller warnings and booted into unraid.
3. The "Main" view showed my three removed drives as missing (duh..)
4. i went to "Tools"->"New Config" and preserved the array assignments (i have no pool drives currently), then checked the box and hit apply
5. then i went back to the "Main" view and i only see the physically remaining drives in order. All others are removed (and not missing as before)
6. hit "start" for the array (no mention of encryption anywhere) -> the array is NOT started
7. now the screen changes to the encryption unlock fields as usual (the fields weren't there before)
8. input the key and unlock/start the array as normal
9. get a notification about building parity for the remaining drives

[itimpi]

4 hours ago, xxlbug said:

• hit "start" for the array (no mention of encryption anywhere) -> the array is NOT started
• now the screen changes to the encryption unlock fields as usual (the fields weren't there before)
• input the key and unlock/start the array as normal

I have added a mention of these steps to the online documentation so thanks for the feedback.